Reframing "Broken English" as Counterhegemonic Linguistic "Drip": Investigating Ethnolinguistic Vitality Within My Sixth-Grade Classroom

• In Event: Critical Approaches to Language and Literacy in Teaching and Teacher Education

Abstract

Grounded in culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012), this investigation promotes SRTOL which affirms students’ right to their own “…patterns and varieties of language—the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their identity and style” (CCCC, 1974). Combining critical language pedagogy (Baker-Bell, 2013) with document analysis (Bowen, 2009) this study investigated ways that the Our Original Word Habits critical language pedagogy curricular innovation impacted youths’ language attitudes throughout the academic school year. Findings reveal the evolving and persisting language attitudes that my African American, Asian, and Latinx students experienced toward the standard and nonstandard Englishes within their linguistic repertoires, while illuminating their deepening metalinguistic awareness about their own linguistic plurality and dexterity.

Author

• BernNadette Thokozile Best-Green, San Joaquin Delta College